Happy Meal

You are always safe here where you can breathe. You are always safe here where you see time pass by just looking up at the sky. You are safe here, despite not having the things you used to have. You are needed here, and they do not need you. They rejected you. Years and years of breaking your back, chasing everybody's approval, achieving high test scores, dedicating your life to science and mathematics to save everyone else's; still, they deemed you not worthy. Well, we think you are. And if you were meant to be up there, you should have been. You are safe here. And you won't feel pain anymore. You will save lives—my life.

You are always safe here even though it's not the world you used to know. In your childhood, everything was about building up and high. Your generation and the generations before yours reached out so high, aimed so far they touched the nothingness of space. What you called obelisks, cell towers, clock towers, skyscrapers, mast radiators, bridges—all those gleaming structures that pierced the sky, they are all what we call futile history. Broken things wrapped in moss. Your people grew up with things growing around you while I grew up with things breaking down. And that's the world I know. And that's okay.

We've been watching you. Every night, we watch you watch the stars. That giant dome up on the hill, we know it's what you call a telescope. I know you're watching them, the spacecrafts carrying thousands and thousands of the worthy. You watch Fortuna, where your former colleagues were assigned, where you should have been. You watch Uzhara, St. Christopher, Hwanin, Janus, Ganesha. You follow Shang Di, where your children are. You plan on tracking them down for as long as you still can. As long as you're not blind yet, you wish to see them off to a brand new world.

You keep yourself safe. Every day, you water your plants. You harvest your potatoes and carrots and eggplants. Yes, we know what they're called. You would take your ax to the forest and hack down trees. You take those trees and hack them down to planks. You take those planks and nail them to your already very tall gates. You scavenge the city for metal. You find wires and twist them, cutting your skin. You bunch them up, wind them, wrap them up, and fasten them to your tall gates. You do all this with your blood, sweat, and tears to keep us out. Your attempts to keep yourself safe made us notice you. If only you tried to live like us, you wouldn't be here today.

All the threats to your survival which you tried to prevent are what we live with now. What you used to call flood is our ocean. What you used to call a heatwave is our weather. What you and I think is normal is strange to the other. What you used to call starvation is our motivation. Your fragility became our strength. We evolved, and we are the better race of humans. Somehow, our shorter expiration date makes us appreciate life even more than you did. I'm not offended by your mockery. I am pretty sorry for you, and as I said, you will not feel pain anymore. You will feel a little hot, and I see you sweating now. I know the drugs are working because you're smiling through your gag. You will have passed out when the flames sear your skin. You won't feel a thing. I know you're old, and there might not be much meat on you, but you will save lives tonight.

I know you used to have your meals cooked for you. You sit around what you called a restaurant and have food laid out in front of your eyes. Some meals even include toys. I want to do something like that for my child. That thing you wore around your neck, what you called a necklace with a heart-shaped locket, I cleaned it and put it in a box. He will find a way to play with it somehow before we take a look inside your tall gates and giant dome.

I assure you. You are safe, will always be safe, just not alive. I know it might not be savory on my part. I know you wouldn't talk to your pigs and your cows and chickens right before you cut their throats, but it has been nice knowing you, Atticus.